


The View from the Bottom of the Bottle

by mistr3ssquickly



Series: Luke &  Han's Adventures in Intoxication [2]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/M, M/M, This could pass as a character study, drink responsibly kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:56:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21958492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistr3ssquickly/pseuds/mistr3ssquickly
Summary: Luke and Lando share a drink together.  It ends no better than when Luke and Han drink together.
Relationships: Lando Calrissian & Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, Luke Skywalker & Han Solo
Series: Luke &  Han's Adventures in Intoxication [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/566717
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	The View from the Bottom of the Bottle

Lando Calrissian is, by his own admission, a scoundrel and a traitor, not the sort of man with whom Luke _or_ Leia should be associating, but he says as much when they first rendezvous with him on Tatooine, says it with a smile on his face and a flourish to his bow, taking Leia’s stony silence and Luke’s awkward caution with grace and dignity, lets them have their suspicions and resentments without complain. He’s not quite as calm when Chewbacca growls something low and threatening at him, the sweat he wipes from his brow more from the nerves Luke can feel reverberating through him than from the heat of late afternoon pressing against the hideout they’ve met in, but Chewbacca doesn’t follow through on any of his threats, instead grooming Lando hard before settling at the table to clean his bowcaster, all apparently forgiven.

It takes a month for Leia to relax around Lando, and that keeps Luke on-edge whenever Lando’s around, but he doesn’t mind the man like Leia does. He likes him, even, which is enough for Lando to warm up to him in short order, to start telling him stories every now and then, usually when it’s just the two of them, Leia nowhere within earshot. Tall tales about his years traveling the galaxy that could rival Han’s best stories, stories that grow a little bit wilder and less believable with each laugh he gets from Luke, each expression of wide-eyed shock he gets in response to some of the things he’s (supposedly) done.

He reminds Luke so _very_ much of Han sometimes that it’s painful, loneliness for Han’s crooked grin and sizeable ego and gruff affection pooling like water around Luke’s heart.

It’s the start of the summer season when Lando invites Luke to go into town with him, the worst of the heat settling across the sands, thickening the air even before the second sun has fully risen. Traveling at midday in the summer isn’t wise, something Luke’s known better than to do except in an emergency since he was five or six years old, but accepting means at least half a day’s reprieve from the isolated monotony Luke remembers from his childhood but doesn’t care for, especially after the years he’s spent amongst the racket and chaos of the rebellion, so he says _yes_ and joins Lando on one of their rusting ‘speeders, the heat of the day soaking into his clothes before they’ve covered even a quarter of the distance they need to go. The nearest town is no bigger or more exciting than Luke remembers it being the last time he was there, then as little more than a child, but it’s got heavy canvas tents set up over the thick clay patios outside the largest of the restaurants, and Lando manages to get them a table with little more than a few credits and his most dazzling smile, the two of them sitting in comfortable chairs with a chilled bottle of liquor and two glasses on the table between them, the breeze passing through lifting the fringe of Luke’s hair, cooling the sweat gathered across the back of his neck.

“Ahh, Tatooine,” Lando sighs, opening the bottle, his expression wan as he fills two shot glasses and pushes one towards Luke. He waits until Luke’s picked up his glass before lifting his own in a toast and knocking the shot back, and Luke copies him, only kind of spluttering when the liquor _burns_ going down, not nearly as easy to drink as Lando made it look. “Been more than a few cycles since I was here last, and I’ve never been here this long without reprieve.”

Luke makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat and sets his glass down, the thought that his nineteen years on Tatooine easily trumps Lando’s four months planetside feeling more like a total loss than a victory.

“Still,” Lando says, tracing his fingertip down the smooth edge of the bottle, “it’s good to know they haven’t lost their touch for making engine degreaser something a man can drink.”

The liquor _does_ smell a lot like the degreaser Luke used to use on the droids his family used around the compound, now that Lando’s mentioned it, which makes taking the next shot Lando pours for him even less appealing than it already was, but Luke takes it all the same, Lando chuckling softly as he pours each of them a third.

“Han used to speak highly of the whiskey you get here, you know,” he says once he’s swallowed the contents of his glass. _“Loved_ this stuff. Used to keep a bottle or three aboard the _Falcon_ for long runs in hyperspace when he was younger, probably about your age. Shared it with me like it was some big deal, first time we crossed paths after he stole my ship out from under me.”

 _That_ particular story is a good one, one of Luke’s personal favorites, not in small part because it changes every time Lando tells it, and has never once lined up, even a little, with the versions Han’s told him before. “It’s good,” he says.

“It really isn’t,” Lando says, “but it’ll get the job done, it doesn’t cost all that much, and Han likes it. And what Han likes, _I_ like, so. There you have it.” He pours each of them a fourth shot, tapping the backs of his fingernails against Luke’s glass before Luke’s picked it up. “You’re included in that, too, you know. Han’s _very_ fond of you.”

Luke blushes, pleased, and picks up his glass. “He’s a good friend.”

“Ahh, that he is,” Lando says, picking up his glass. He sips at the liquor, this time, rather than dumping all of it into his mouth at once, sighing like he was maybe not telling the truth about how much he doesn’t like the taste. “You know,” he says after a long moment, his voice drifting a little on the breeze as it passes through, “there was a time in my life I would have told you I was in love with Han Solo. Not entirely sure I would’ve been wrong, either. He’s a bastard and a scoundrel, but he’s --” A sigh. “Well, surely you must know. Leaving the rebellion to come all the way out here and save him. That’s not something one does for just anyone. Certainly not for a, ah. _Good friend.”_

Luke takes a drink from his glass, the burn of the distillate saving from responding immediately, Lando’s words twisted around a deep melancholy tinged with the helpless longing Luke’s felt for the last few years. “Han’s a good friend,” he says again, taking a sip of his drink to wash down the awkwardness of repeating himself.

“Uh- _huh._ So you’ve said,” Lando says. He reaches up and taps his index finger against the curve of his cheekbone, his skin shiny with sweat in the afternoon heat. “A good friend who punched me with all his strength when he found out the trap Vader had set in my city was set for _you,”_ he says. “Wasn’t half as upset about being locked up or tortured as he was just hearing your name.” He leans back, raising what’s left in his glass in a mockery of a toast. “Sounds like more than just a friend, to me.”

“We’re brothers-in-arms, too,” the whiskey says on what sounds suspiciously like Luke’s own voice, Lando laughing at him for it, the sound rich and warm where it reverberates off the sand. So like the sound of Han laughing at him when Luke says something naive or stupid that it makes his chest ache.

“Brothers-in-arms,” Lando repeats. “That’s beautiful. I can’t wait to tell Han that when we get him unfrozen. He’ll absolutely -- you don’t actually _mean_ that, do you?”

Luke shrugs again, drinking half of the next shot Lando pours for him. “He saved my life,” he says, “a couple of times. We’ve flown together and fought together. Wedge says --”

“Who’s Wedge?”

“My friend.”

“Another brother-in-arms?”

“Yeah.”

“Mm. You have a few of those, I’m guessing?”

Luke thinks of Biggs, the older brother he never had, thinks of the way Biggs hollered his name and ran across the hangar to embrace him on Yavin, holding him tight until the shock of seeing a familiar face had worn off well enough for Luke to hug him back. Thinks of the hug Han gave him just hours later, the deserter-turned-savior holding him with desperation tight in the muscles of his arms, sweat-damp and shaking with the rush of what they’d just done. Of Wedge’s handshake during the manic celebrations that followed, the haunted look in his eyes as he pulled Luke close and wrapped his arms around him, thanking him for doing what he did, for his willingness to die alongside those who didn’t make it. For saving those who did come back alive.

“Yeah.”

Lando chuckles softly, reaching across the table to fill Luke’s glass, up to the brim this time, and Luke frowns, no memory surfacing for him of emptying the last shot Lando poured for him, but then Lando lifts his own glass and says, “To our beloved brothers, be they brothers in arms or brothers _in_ our arms. May they love us until we are old and grey,” and drinks his shot, and Luke’s drunk but he’s still got _manners,_ so he drinks as well, the shot burning a little less as it goes down this time, but still enough to make his eyes water. Lando reaches across the table once again, this time offering Luke a the silk square he keeps in his pocket, what Luke had assumed was just another of his fashion accessories.

“Didn’t mean to make you cry,” Lando says when Luke takes the silk square and looks at him, puzzled.

“I’m not crying,” Luke says.

“Of _course_ you’re not,” Lando says, leaning back in his chair and waving away Luke’s attempt to hand him back his pocket square, so Luke uses it to scrub at his eyes, figuring there’s no sense in putting up with salt crust at their corners if he doesn’t have to. “So, if I’m understanding you correctly, you and Han never ...” He gestures vaguely. “He didn’t take your innocence, so to speak?”

Luke thinks of the guards he blasted in the detention center aboard the _Death Star,_ the realization that he’d killed someone -- Stormtroopers, but still, living sentient beings -- only sinking in hours later, worse somehow than the ripple of death he felt riding the shockwave from the _Death Star,_ the cold tide he’d sensed earlier aboard the _Falcon,_ the death of billions on Alderaan little more than a shiver pulling hard along his spine in comparison. Thinks of how much easier it was, killing the next time he had to. After he’d done it once before. “No,” he says, careful to keep his voice even. “I wasn’t acting under his orders or anything.”

Lando’s giving him a strange look. “I, uh. Think you might’ve misunderstood my meaning, Luke,” he says. “I meant, Han didn’t -- you haven’t slept with him. Sexually.”

Luke feels his entire face go warm, warmer than it had been already, warmer than he’d thought it _could_ go, Lando’s laughter mixing in with his tongue-tied spluttering in a way that does _not_ make it better. The shot he takes the _second_ Lando’s poured it for him doesn’t help either, but it gives him something to do with his mouth _other_ than try to spit out six different responses at once, buys him the few seconds he needs to gather his thoughts and say _**no** ,_ loudly enough that Lando starts laughing at him all over again, slapping his knee and everything.

“Well, all right then,” he says, pulling another silk square from his pocket and dabbing at his eyes, his mirth shaking his shoulders still. “I had the wrong idea, I suppose. From the way Han reacted to you, and from what Leia said, I just assumed --” He shakes his head again. “How about you and Leia? You ever --?”

Luke’s glass is empty. He pushes it towards Lando, grateful when Lando takes the hint and passes it back to him full. “No,” he says before downing the shot, not waiting for Lando to fill his own glass first, but he figures that’s all right, they’re _apparently_ discussing his sex life now, so manners are all but out the window anyway. “She isn’t -- I haven’t -- no.”

Lando lifts an eyebrow at him. “You’ve never had the nerve to ask her,” he says, “have you?”

He’s right, _dead_ right, and it _hurts,_ embarrassment and want and regret and jealousy all winding up Luke’s throat on a whine he’d be embarrassed for anyone to hear if he had half a mind to care, which he doesn’t, and Lando clucks his tongue and makes a rueful sound, reaching out to fill Luke’s glass once again. The bottle’s really empty, Luke notices as he reaches for his glass, what little liquor’s left inside catching the brightness of the suns and glinting sun-crystals into his eyes, making him blink.

“You should, you know,” Lando says as Luke lifts his glass and downs the shot, licking his hand where some of it sloshed out onto his skin. It’s not half-bad like that, mixed with salt, and that’s -- _oh_ that’s a fantasy he’s entertained for _years,_ a colorful array of situations that would have him licking the salt of Leia’s sweat off of her neck, her breasts, her thighs. It comes back to him in a rush, so loud and colorful in his own mind that he panics, just for a second, at the thought that maybe Lando’s seen it, glimpsed it like Luke can sometimes glimpse others’ thoughts, Han’s usually, sometimes Wedge’s. Very rarely Leia’s. But Lando doesn’t react like he’s seen anything out of Luke’s fantasies, his mouth still quirked in a grin so similar to the one Han dons whenever _he’s_ the one teasing Luke about something that Luke catches himself wondering if Han learned it from Lando in the first place.

“Wha?” he says, when he realizes Lando’s looking at him like he’s waiting for an answer to a question or something.

“I _said,_ you should ask Leia if she’d like to be your first. If she’d be interested in going to bed with you,” Lando says. “Be willing to bet the answer to that would be _yes.”_ He wiggles his eyebrows as he says it, lifting the liquor bottle to his lips and drinking what’s left in it, his throat working as he swallows. “For the record, I wouldn’t mind seeing how that goes, if she says yes to you. The two of you make a pretty picture. Be happy to join in the fun, too, if you think you’d have room for me.”

Luke’s imagination is quick to fill in for him what _that_ might be like, some of the better pornholos he’s seen over the years giving him a basis to work off of, and it’s just too much for him, the burn of lust that rushes through him, enhanced by the liquor in his system wreaking havoc on his logical mind, in no small part due to the heat of the day pushing in on the shadows still safely draped well around them. He’s groping for something -- _anything_ \-- to say when Lando’s attention shifts, spilling past Luke’s left shoulder, and he says _there she is,_ grinning in the long, drunken second it takes Luke to process his words and turn, his stomach dropping at the sight of Leia standing right behind him for gods-know-how-long, hearing gods-know-what from their conversation.

“We were just talking about you,” Lando says, lifting the empty bottle halfway up in a toast before he realizes it’s empty. He grins. “Let me get another bottle, and you can join us. Share your thoughts on the conversation.”

“How -- how long have you --” Luke starts, but he tries to turn in his chair to face Leia more directly and the ground beneath him _shifts,_ nearly spilling him onto the shadow-cooled clay below, his legs sluggish, like he’s sitting waist-deep in water or something. Leia reaches out and catches him when he flails, saves him from making a complete fool of himself, and where he _knows_ her hands are small, delicate in a way that’s fascinated him since he first met her, they come down on his shoulders with incredible force, squeezing into the meat of his arms with all the fabled strength of the beskar of Mandalor, her mouth sealed in a tight, thin line as he regains his equilibrium. Kissing her when she’s frowning like she is wouldn’t be the best, but it’d be a _challenge,_ and Han was so, _so_ right when he said that Luke loves nothing more than a good challenge, so --

“How much have you had to drink?” Leia says before Luke can do much more than think about kissing her.

“A -- few?” he says, trying to do some very quick mental math and failing completely. “I think?”

Leia narrows her eyes at him. “You look like you’ve had more than that,” she says.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“At the three-quarters mark,” Leia says.

Luke squints at the band of sunlight draped across the ground not far from where Leia’s standing. It’s still bright, glowing white against the clay floor. Not even close to the mellowed orange of first sunset. It’s bright enough to make his eyes hurt, so he looks away from it, back to the soft pink flush of Leia’s cheeks, the sheen of sweat on her skin, her pale complexion sun-darkened in contrast to the pale lilac of her gown, the one he got her, the one she likes best out of all the garments she wears when she’s trying to blend in among his people. “Um.”

“You’ll dehydrate, drinking yourself into a stupor this early in the day,” Leia says, the embarrassment that he’s gotten caught doing something stupid dulled into a gentle burn under Luke’s skin, his mind far more focused on the notion that the lock of hair that’s escaped Leia’s braids is probably tickling her neck where the afternoon breeze has caught it, making it dance. That he loves her hair, dark and silky and beautiful, barely lightened even after their months working together under the twin suns of his homeworld.

“I’ll be okay,” he tells her.

Leia sighs like he’s being difficult and lifts her gaze to focus on Lando. “You said you’ve been to Tatooine before,” she says, her hands staying where they are on Luke’s shoulders, and that’s nice. Luke likes having them there.

“I have indeed,” Lando says. “Many times.”

“Then you should know better,” Leia says. She looks back at Luke, then again at Lando. “Both of you should.”

“If I tell you it was a momentary lapse under the pressures of the heat and political situation we’ve found ourselves in, would you do me the kindness of believing me?” Lando wants to know, grinning in a way Luke would know isn’t going to go over well with Leia, even without the Force granting him clarity into the swoop of temper that pulls through her, Leia somehow _audibly_ rolling her eyes before she hauls Luke to his feet and walks him out of the compound, the heat and brightness rippling off the sands assaulting him like a shove.

His legs are almost completely numb beneath him, the reverberation of each step he takes muted in the sands, his balance doing strange things in the shimmering heat rising in the thick afternoon air around him. Leia keeps her arm around him as they walk, and that’s nice, Luke likes that, until he stumbles and it’s _only_ Leia’s hands on him that keep him from falling on his face or square on his ass. She pulls him over to his landspeeder and helps him into the passenger seat, answering his insistence that he doesn’t _need_ her help with a perfunctory _mm-hmm_ that tells him she doesn’t believe him, and shouldn’t either, the ‘speeder pitching and yawing under him even before she’s come around to the driver’s side and climbed in, shaking her head as she looks at him before kicking on the ignition, flying them across the sands at speeds that have the drink sloshing around in Luke’s stomach threatening an encore appearance, all thoughts that he’s not as drunk as Leia thinks he is evaporating by the time they’ve reached the comforting shadow cast by Obi-wan’s hut.

He’s determined to prove to her that he’s _not_ completely useless, stubborn in the way Han’s teased him about being for _years,_ and it goes badly for him almost straight away, even before he’s fully liberated himself from the metal confines of the ‘speeder, Leia once again catching him, only this time she’s _really_ strong, unbelievably strong, and _hairy,_ incredibly hairy, and it takes Luke far longer than it should to realize that it’s actually Chewbacca who’s come out to collect him, Leia standing nearby, holding open the door to the hut.

“Drinking with Lando,” Leia says when Chewbacca rumbles a question at her, pulling Luke into the blessed cool of their temporary home and propping him up on the thick clay bench along the back wall. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think Lando meant to kill him.” Another rumble, this one Leia answers with, “Whiskey, would be my guess, from the shape of the bottle. Emptied the whole thing between the two of them.”

 _That_ earns him a grumbled insult that even Luke can understand, his limited grasp of Shyriiwook notwithstanding, and he opens his mouth to say something, to defend himself, maybe to defend Lando, but his throat’s too dry for him to manage, which means he does little more than cough weakly, leaning into Chewbacca’s chest, for all that Chewbacca is _way_ too warm for that sort of thing, his pelt trapping all of the heat of the day and his own body and Luke’s body between them where they’re in contact, which is just about as pleasant as being roasted.

Leia glares at him. “I need to get back to my work,” she says. “Look after him for me, please? Comm me if he -- if this turns out to be more than just the start of the worst hangover of his life.”

Chewbacca trills a response, propping Luke up under his own power and crossing the small room to groom Leia a little before she goes, a sweet gesture that dims her gathering ire, the affection she’s developed for the wookiee over the years swelling big enough to fill the whole hut, washing comfort over Luke’s sweat-sticky skin like a splash of cool water. He’s still enjoying the memory of it when Chewbacca turns his attentions back to him, pouring a cup of water and pressing it against Luke’s mouth, the water cool and rich with the familiar earthy flavors of Tatooine, the taste all at once salvation and comfort and _home,_ like Aunt Beru’s hand on his forehead when he was little and feverish from the seasonal rains, like Uncle Owen’s proud smile whenever Luke surprised him with his ability to fix things around the farm. He drinks it down greedily without spilling a drop, breathless when Chewbacca takes the cup from him and rumbles something, gesturing to the bed at the back of the hut, pouring another glass of water while Luke stumbles numbly across the hut and strips off his tunic, dizzying himself all over again as he lies down. His heart’s pounding just from that bit of exertion, with the effort of breathing, the fading black-and-ochre patterns painted on the ceiling swirling and spinning before his eyes, intoxicating him the longer he stares at them. He drinks the second cup of water Chewbacca brings him, manages to say _thank you_ once his cup is empty, and Chewbacca woofs something Luke wants to believe is _you’re welcome,_ staying close until Luke gives in to the silence of the thick clay walls closing in on him like a hand, sleep filtering in on the dusty air to claim him.

He wakes some hours later to an aching heaviness that suffuses every inch of his body, from the unbearable weight of his head down to the loud complaints of each of his joints, his fingers and toes and ankles and wrists and knees and elbows and hips and shoulders all swollen and stiff, compressing against his ribs, unwilling to expand for him to draw breath without taking their due. The air around him is hot and acrid, stinking of his own sweat, the sounds and images from the nightmare that woke him dragging him into a jolting panic that he’s on Bespin still, that Vader is there, hunting him, obscured by the heat of the carbon pits rising up around him, suffocating him. He grabs for his lightsaber but finds only his own bare skin and the waistband of his breeches, no weapon on him at all, and when he steps forward, thinking to find a weapon or _hide,_ at least, his balance betrays him, throwing him to the floor. Leaving him prone and vulnerable, an easy target to be frozen in carbonite like Han was, to be taken before the Emperor, unarmed and helpless, Vader’s sacrifice of his own s--

A hand grips him and terror pulls him free, burning down his legs in a jolt of energy he’d credit to the Force if he weren’t so busy crashing headfirst into the leg of the table at the center of the hut, falling hard on his hip as he goes, the pain helping him focus, clearing into recognition the familiar shapes of Obi-wan’s hut. He rolls onto his back and pushes himself up into a half-seated position, blinking in the sudden brilliance when Chewbacca switches on the glowbulb by the bed, normally dim enough that Luke can sleep with it on but that burns with blinding brightness, Luke crying out and lifting his arms to shield his eyes, breathless and hurting and dizzy but _safe,_ the ache of relief flooding him.

Chewbacca, in an act of kindness bigger than the whole planet, switches the glowbulb off and comes over to lift Luke to his feet, holding him steady until Luke’s gotten his breath back well enough to let him know he’s all right to stand on his own, his bladder throbbing with the very real threat of incontinence, now that he’s got the mind to notice it. Chewbacca lets him go before he wets himself, but only just, and when he emerges from the ‘fresher, the glowbulb is on once again, though Chewbacca’s draped a cloth over its shade, dimming it, the hut lit just enough for Luke to see where he’s going, sinking into one of the seats along the wall and tipping his head back, taking inventory of his injuries.

He’s pretty well determined that there’s little wrong with him beyond a splitting headache and severe dehydration when Chewbacca hands him a cup of water and woofs something Luke assumes is _drink,_ which he does, sipping the water slowly enough that he won’t throw it up, his stomach threatening mutiny on him, even as he sits still, doing nothing to draw its ire. Chewbacca nods in approval, leaving him to drink his water as he rifles through the first aid kit Luke recognizes from the _Falcon,_ producing after a moment’s search a packet of pills, which he hands to Luke, holding up two fingers as he does.

“Take two of them?” Luke says.

Chewbacca nods, then takes Luke’s cup away and refills it with water, standing sentinel over Luke until he’s swallowed the pills and drunk the cup of water. His body feels marginally better -- his throat does, anyway -- just from the water he’s drunk, but he doesn’t put up any resistance when Chewbacca herds him out of his seat and back over to the bed, the sheets damp with his sweat but more comfortable than the clay he’d been sitting on, sleep taking him down with no trouble once whatever drugs he’s put into his system start to take effect, his body floating over itself, dissipating into the silent darkness around him as his eyes close, muffling the galaxy around him.

The next time he wakes, he’s hungover, and badly so, but not nearly what he was during the night, daylight blinding and painful when he leaves the hut, but not unbearable. The way it makes his headache worse is worth it for the privacy of the caves he’s been visiting to practice with his lightsaber, their deep shadows a blessing to his misery, even as the hard rock under him numbs his tailbone. A fitting punishment for his own stupidity the day before, he thinks as he closes his eyes and sinks into his meditations.

He traces the ebb and flow of colliding miseries across his body, feeling the alcohol’s effects throughout his body. Swellings, broken blood vessels. Scarring in his liver. Breaches in his muscles, microscopic tears from his fall in the middle of the night. All minor damage, and damage he can isolate and _fix,_ he realizes, the Force allowing him to knit together damaged flesh, to ease the swellings putting pressure in his joints. The work is slow and tedious, more difficult than anything he’s attempted before, but it _works,_ his mind and body exhausted but whole as he trudges back home to Chewbacca’s worried vocalizations and grooming midday, back to the welcome hum of the sonic shower. Chewbacca pushes a rations tin into his hands the minute he steps out of the ‘fresher, feeling clean for the first time in two days, and pours him a generous cup of water to go with it, holding up the packet of painkillers with an inquisitive noise, almost as an afterthought.

“No, thank you,” Luke says. “I think I’ll be all right. Nothing I can’t sleep off tonight.’

Chewbacca woofs something that sounds like he doesn’t believe him, but he doesn’t push, sitting down at Luke’s side and eating his own meal, something local he caught and cooked, by the look of it, the smell of charred flesh doing Luke’s appetite no favors. He endures, happy enough to have company as he eats, the weight of the day compelling him to bed early, even before Chewbacca’s hung up his hammock, the big guy trundling around the hut long after Luke’s drifted to sleep.

He’s out practicing with his lightsaber when Lando comes by to check on him the day following, so focused on his exercises that he doesn’t realize that it’s Lando following the shale-slick path down to his spot in the caves, fight-or-flight instinct drawing on the Force and sending Lando flying backwards into a smooth chunk of weather-worn sandstone before Luke’s consciously processed the impulse, guilt tugging at him as he lifts the blast shield on his helmet and sees Lando crumbled in on himself, wheezing as he brushes dust from his clothes.

“Hello to you, too,” Lando says when he sees Luke coming over to him, hand outstretched to pull him to his feet. “You do that on purpose?”

“Yes,” Luke admits.

Lando laughs. “Fair enough. I suppose I should ask if you knew it was _me_ when you did it on purpose.”

Luke snorts softly, the joke easing the embarrassment of hurting his friend. “How’d you find me?”

“Tracker on your ‘speeder,” Lando says. “When I didn’t hear from you yesterday, I was worried maybe you’d crawled out here and died. Thought maybe I should come recover your body so our princess wouldn’t have to.”

“Thanks, I think,” Luke says. “I’m all right, though.”

“Seem to be,” Lando says, looking him up and down. “More than, even.” He sighs wistfully. “Ahh to be young again.”

Luke’s age has nothing to do with it, but he leaves it alone, not interested in finding out if Lando’s as put off by mentions of the Force as Han always was, the mere _thought_ of defending it making him tired. “Yeah,” he says, instead, shifting his weight from one foot to the other before he remembers that that’s one of his tells, something he does when he’s uncomfortable. One of Han’s observations that he’s tried to take to heart, over the years.

Lando, of course, doesn’t miss it, cocking his head to one side and fixing Luke with a measured look. “You know,” he says, “I’ve heard about the Force my whole life, but until now, I’d never actually met anyone who could use it.” He gestures to the sandstone outcropping behind him. “I’m assuming that’s what you used to throw me around just now.”

Luke nod sheepishly. “Yes. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Oh, you didn’t,” Lando says. “Surprised me, perhaps, but I’m unharmed. Didn’t even wrinkle my clothes.”

He winks when he says it, and Luke smiles back. “The Jedi use it for knowledge and defense,” he says. “Never for attack.”

“Hmm, well, that could be problematic, then,” Lando says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Leia comm’d me this morning. She’s the _actual_ reason I’m out here to collect you. Seems she’s come up with something of a plan to get Han out of Jabba’s clutches, but it involves your use of the Force. And it _won’t_ be for -- what did you just say? Knowledge and defense?”

“That’s right.”

“Argument _could_ be made that you’ll be using it for defense,” Lando says, “but ...” He shakes his head. “Anyway. Leia said she’d come by later and go over the whole thing with us, tell us all the details. She told me to find you, bring you along.” He grins. “Sober, both of us. She was very specific about that.”

Luke feels his face go warm, knows it’ll be obvious to Lando that he’s blushing, despite the shadows draped around them. “I’ll be there,” he said. “Sober as a wookiee.”

“You do that,” Lando says, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’d say be careful out here, but --” he rubs at the dusty mark where his elbow hit the rocks, earlier, and clucks his tongue “-- I don’t think you need me to tell you that. Don’t think you’re in any danger, either way, Force abilities or no.”

“I’ll be careful,” Luke says anyway.

“You do that,” Lando says. “See you this evening, Luke.”

Luke nods. “See you then.”

_Author’s notes_ :

I wrote a toss-off comment in _[Hindsight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8288519)_ about Luke drinking with Lando, and _somehow_ going out and getting positively _wasted_ over the course of _Rise of Skywalker’s_ runtime crammed this little story into my head and _it wouldn’t go away,_ so now here we are, shy of a week later, and I’m gifting it to you lovely little birdies for a holiday I don’t even celebrate.

It should be noted that I generally dislike portraying Luke as a virgin or as naive, but here I’ve gone and done both and I don’t hate it? I also _really_ liked _Rise of Skywalker_ and am planning to see it a second time on the big screen, which is something else I never do. What is happening to me, I mean really.

And finally, in case you don’t know me yet or you’ve forgotten, I _adore_ Lando Calrissian and would love to do more with him, but damned if he doesn’t shy away from me writing him. Probably because I’ve not been all that nice to him, historically. Ah well.


End file.
